Are words meaningless? Are definitions passé? For thousands of years, marriage, by definition, was the union of a man with a woman. It is the basic foundation of law and society. If such a fundamental word is changed or made meaningless then which words are superior and not subject to arbitrary change?

Words express a common tangible object or understanding with certainty. It is how we communicate. We come to a stop sign and it means stop. Laws are based on words as is all human communications. A banana is not an orange. A cat born in a barn is not a cow.

This is all about the only important thing to Obama and that is Obama. He is a shameless disgrace. He needs to be removed from his office.

To me, this argues for devolution. There is no possibility for 350 million people to agree on anything, We have entered a zone of tyranny of the minority supported by activist courts and governmental agencies. Thirty states have rejected the attack on real marriage. There are many more issues that belong at the state level. This is an example of where we have come. There is no longer a meaning to America. It cannot be because there is no acceptable common definition of what an American is and when that happens the word becomes meaningless. We are reduced to servants of the federal government. With devolution, you have a choice. It cannot happen soon enough for me.

Ms. Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, angered by Greece's unpredictability, told the Greek premier in the French Riviera resort of Cannes on Nov. 2 that the referendum should make the choice facing Greeks clear: Implement the bailout program or leave the euro. He agreed.

...

Euro-zone leaders' open talk of expelling Greece shocked the country. Consumer and business spending nearly came to a halt.

Most Americans thought they were fighting for the country, not on Barack Obama’s behalf. Slip of the tongue, to be sure, but can one think of another president who’d have made it?

They are fighting under his command, under his orders, to be sure, but this particular locution is offensive and solipsistic. Mr. Obama has switched his position on the sanctity of marriage back and forth and has a new one, again, today, revealed when politics made that advisable to him and to his campaign.

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But let’s leave our soldiers out of this. They aren’t fighting for Mr. Obama and his campaign, and no one sent them out to risk their lives to win same sex “marriage.”

What had seemed like a minor kerfuffle when Vice-President Joe Biden proclaimed himself "entirely comfortable" with gay marriage at the weekend, now seemed like part of a choreographed effort by the White House to energise the Democrat party base and to put Mr Obama on the right side of a civil rights issue that appears to be gaining momentum.

"President Obama's words today will be celebrated by generations to come," said Chad Griffin, president of the gay rights lobby group the Human Rights Campaign.

In North Carolina, campaigners vowed to fight to overturn the marriage ban. "We can't change the results of this vote, but we can determine what comes next," vowed Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, of the Campaign for Southern Equality.

Puhleeze. I, or you, have no more right in those people's personal lives than they have in ours. If they want to live together, and call it marriage, what the hell right does the "State" have to object? If the state can tell you who to "marry," then where the hell does its power end?

I'm guessing it's a small political mistake, and he'll lose more votes than he gains over it. Maybe even two or three black votes, most of whom don't like the idea. Romney had already shot himself in the foot silencing his gay spokesman, which was a mistake too.

If you want a national right to gay marriage, vote Obama, he'll appoint Supreme Court justices that will get the job done.

In their new book, It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism, Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein offer both an insightful diagnosis of the problem of a broken Washington and a set of proposed solutions. Their diagnosis is mostly right—there’s a mismatch between our form of government and our new, fiercely ideological political parties. But their proposed solutions won’t get us very far thanks to the very pathologies they identify. The cliché is true: Washington is broken. But it’s even worse than Mann and Ornstein say: It can’t be fixed.

...

The focus on whether Republicans are more to blame has distracted from the fundamental truth in Mann and Ornstein’s book: If such ideological polarization persists, we would be much better off with a British-style parliamentary system rather than our traditional “separation of powers” approach to government. In a well-designed parliamentary democracy, the majority party can actually govern, and voters can punish that party when it governs badly or things go wrong. Voters hold politicians accountable.

We heard pretty much the same thing, from the same parties, during the Great Depression. In the Headlines FDR, and Eleanor were "Communists;" in the backrooms, and parlors they were "nigger-loving communists."

One reason it will be hard for Chinese lenders to make significant inroads in the U.S. is that big U.S. players like Bank of America Corp., J.P. Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo & Co. have such a commanding presence. Also, the Fed is wary of very large bank deals after the financial crisis, which exposed the risks posed by giant banks with many ties to one another.

Some U.S. banks, for their part, have been shedding their stakes in Chinese firms. The moves aren't seen as repudiations of China, but as efforts to cash in profits at a time when U.S. firms are hungry for capital.

Citigroup Inc., for example, booked a $349 million profit on the March sale of its 2.71% stake in Shanghai Pudong Development Bank. Bank of America last year recognized a $5 billion gain on sales of shares in China Construction Bank Corp.

I think this was a bridge too far. This is not going to get Obama one more vote than he already had. This group did not get Obama elected. For every marginal vote electrified, three others will be horrified. What elected Obama were white middle class average Americans who were sick of the wars and George Whatafukup Bush. This calculated move,. missed a decimal and the result will be a miss for Barack Hoothefukwas Obama.

Hard to say how it will play out. I don't see many people changing their mind over this particular issue. However, if votes do change, I agree it will likely be to Romney's benefit.

This was purely a calculated political act by Obama. He was against gay marriage, then when he caught flak from his base, 'his views were evolving', then when some polls showed there was a slight plurality in favor allowing gay marriage, he comes out in favor of it. The man has no core.

On the previous stream, I pointed out those in favor of 'gay marriage'. They are all part of Obama's base. They will vote with him regardless. Those who are not in favor of it include the Midwest and the South, regions that contain battleground states that the next president will need to win.

Obama hasn't evolved on the issue, he has reverted to his status quo ante.

The debate over same sex “marriage” has engaged the heartfelt feelings and convictions of millions of Americans. Then there is Barack Obama.

In his ABC interview, the president pretended that his much touted “evolution” had now led him, ineluctably, to speak out now, today; he simply could longer stay silent. ABC let him off the hook, but this is not a credible account. In March, the Washington Post was reporting the debate among his advisers on whether the issue would help or hurt the reelection campaign and what, therefore, Obama should say: “Obama’s top political advisers have held serious discussions with leading Democrats about the upsides and downsides of coming out for gay marriage before the fall election.”

The same advisers told the Post that Obama would make the decision based on his gut, but that is an insulting way to refer to the vice president. There is no evidence that Obama planned to speak until Joe Biden said last weekend that he was for gay “marriage” and forced the issue.

In fact, Obama has not “evolved”—he has changed his position whenever his political fortunes required him to do so. Running for the Illinois state senate from a trendy area of Chicago in 1996, he was for gay marriage. “I favor legalizing same-sex marriages,” he wrote in answer to a questionnaire back then. In 2004, he was running for the U.S. Senate and needed to appeal to voters statewide. So he evolved, and favored civil unions but opposed homosexual “marriage.” In 2008, running for president, he said, “I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage.” Now in 2012, facing a tough reelection campaign where he needs energized supporters of gay “marriage” and has disappointed them with his refusal to give them his support, he is for it. To paraphrase John Kerry, he was for it before he was against it before he was for it again.

Yeah, that pretty much says it. He wasn't going to get the "religious" bigots, anyway, but he really needed something to fire up the 18 to 34 vote. And, he really needed some cred with the "gay, and somewhat independent vote." It'll probably pick up an extra one, or two percent for him, and he's really going to need every one, or two percent that he can get.

'marriage' has never been simply a 'statement of love and commitment' or the 'right of all people who believe they love one another to have their relationship legally recognised on demand'. Marriage evolved over thousands of generations, and was certainly not invented by the Church, nor is it 'owned' by it.The Church simply endorses the 'best practice' of this evolution, for the betterment of society as a whole, and not just one particular group. When the form of Marriage was thus finally established and written down there were certain defined qualifications:You have to be adult. You cannot be married to somebody else. You cannot be closely related by blood to the person you marry. And the person you marry must be of the opposite sex. When these qualifications were laid down, polygamists were outraged at their 'freedoms' being restricted, as were people who liked to marry their cousins, uncles and other close family etc - but it was deemed to be in the wider public interest; would anyone now want to go back to inbreeding and polygamy??

.. the proof of the pudding is , as they say, in the eating, and not how it appears at first on the plateThere are a lot of unintended consequences waiting in the wings for the 'benefit of gay marriage'.....and some of them like Peter Tatchell's man-boy love agenda you may not find so easy to digest....

Push polls show the country divided over this issue, many expressing an affirmative opinion because they do not want to seem bigoted. That does not necessarily reflect the way that they really feel. The political ploy will not get the average American to the polls. There simply is not that much discrimination against gays that even makes it an issue about civil rights. It is a media driven non-problem problem. It does end the conversation amongst the average conservative voter about their support for Mitt Romney. Mitt Romney, thanks to Obama and the dumbest of shits, Joe Biden, is the man. Obama elevated him in the same way Bush elevated Obama. Obama simply has to go and Romney is the last babe at the bar and it is fifteen minutes to closing.

By the way. Did anyone see the CBS 60 Minutes with the interview of the two Air Force pilots in uniform who are refusing to fly the F-22? If these two wingmen were not qualified to sing with The Village People, I would be astonished.

This election year if you feel the issue of Gay Marriage outweighs the issue of you having a JOB and FEEDING your FAMILY then have fun telling your HUNGRY CHILDREN they should be happy little Johnny has two Dads.

Archaeologists have discovered evidence for a previously unknown ancient language – buried in the ruins of a 2800 year old Middle Eastern palace.

The discovery is important because it may help reveal the ethnic and cultural origins of some of history’s first ‘barbarians’ – mountain tribes which had, in previous millennia, preyed on the world’s first great civilizations, the cultures of early Mesopotamia in what is now Iraq.

Evidence of the long-lost language - probably spoken by a hitherto unknown people from the Zagros Mountains of western Iran – was found by a Cambridge University archaeologist as he deciphered an ancient clay writing tablet unearthed by an international archaeological team excavating an Assyrian imperial governors’ palace in the ancient city of Tushan, south-east Turkey.

The tablet revealed the names of 60 women – probably prisoners-of-war or victims of an Assyrian forced population transfer program. But when the Cambridge archaeologist – Dr. John MacGinnis - began to examine the names in detail, he realized that 45 of them bore no resemblance to any of the thousands of ancient Middle Eastern names already known to scholars.

Because ancient Middle Eastern names are normally composites, made-up, in full or abbreviated form, of ordinary words in the relevant local lexicon, the unique nature of the tablet’s 45 mystery names is seen by scholars as evidence of a previously unknown language.

The clay tablet text originally formed part of the palace’s archive – used by local Assyrian imperial officials to record their administrative, political and economic decisions and actions.

The 60 women (including the 45 with evidence of the previously unattested language) were almost certainly being deployed by the palace authorities for some economic purpose (potentially a female-associated craft activity like weaving). Indeed the text mentions that some of them were being allocated to specific local villages.

Typical names, born by the women – the evidence for the lost language – include Ushimanay, Alagahnia, Irsakinna and Bisoonoomay.

Now archaeologists and linguistics experts are set to analyse the mystery names in even greater details to try to discover whether the letter-order or letter frequency shows any similarities to previously attested ancient tongues to which this mystery language could be related.

The 45 women are thought to come from somewhere in the central or northern Zagros Mountains – because that is the only area in which the Assyrians were militarily active at the relevant time where the ancient languages are still largely unknown.

It’s likely that the women were compulsorily moved from their Zagros Mountains homeland and assigned to work near Tushan sometime in the second half of the 8th century BC – probably as a result of conquests carried out in the Zagros by the Assyrian kings Tiglath Pilasser III or Sargon.

The excavation of the palace at Tushan is being carried out by a German archaeological team directed by Dr. Dirk Wicke of Mainz University as part of an archaeological investigation into the ancient Assyrian city led by Professor Timothy Matney of the University of Akron in Ohio. Full details about the discovery of the mystery names are published in the current issue of the Journal of Near Eastern Studies .

"Perhaps I’m being overly cynical,” wrote a well-known realist and conspiracy theorist on April 23, “but the new ‘strategic partnership’ agreement between the United States and Afghanistan strikes me as little more than a fig leaf designed to make a U.S. withdrawal (which I support) look like a mutually agreed-upon ‘victory.’ It is already being spun as a signal to the Taliban, Iran, and Pakistan that the United States remains committed, and the agreement will undoubtedly be used as ‘evidence’ that the 2009 surge is a success and that’s now ok for the US to bring its forces home.”

...

In the words of a contemporary anti-Reconstruction account, South Carolina “was in anarchy” when Hayes was inaugurated:

Within a month after the [inauguration] the garrisons which had been stationed by Grant and [Republican governor Daniel Henry] Chamberlain in nearly every populated place in the State had been withdrawn from all points. After their withdrawal the hostile races confronted each other.

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Why do our best and brightest keep promising the world to our friends, and​—​after sacrificing the lives of their fellow citizens and the fortunes and honor of the entire country to achieve a result​—​tire of the struggle just as peace may be discernible in the distance? David Rieff’s formula is tempting: The liberal interventionists in the Yugoslavian venture of the ’90s “always had a special weakness for believing that the decisions they make out of political expediency somehow still epitomize virtue.”

I have been meaning to do a post on that great American President, Andrew Jackson and what he did to the Cherokee. Hold your fire until you actually understand the facts. On second thought do your thing and feel free to emote, facts be damned.

Well you embrace the idea of Israel having no rights to be a nation in it's historic homeland, you dismiss the idea that Jerusalem is the City of David, of the Jews, You support the destruction of the people called Israel.

You put up a KAPO Jew (in name only) anti-semite such as Finkelstein and tell us you think he makes sense and supports his point of views..

SO you are in fact fast on the track of being considered a full fledged anti semite., that fits with the crowd that embraces and endorses same sex marriage, gender reclassifiction and of course the genocide of all Jews.

The Santee migrated north and westward from the Southeast United States, first into Ohio, then to Minnesota. Some came up from the Santee River and Lake Marion, area of South Carolina. The Santee River was named after them, and some of their ancestors' ancient earthwork mounds have survived along the portion of the dammed-up river that forms Lake Marion. In the past, they were a Woodland people who thrived on hunting, fishing and subsistence farming. wiki

And then the Sioux got the horse, and became fierce, and warlike, like the very early Aryans, who were peaceful types until they mastered the horse, and the temptation to whack the grounded from a mounted steed became too much. This was the development Zoroaster reacted against.

Here is a link to a Santee author. He wrote a total of 11 books I think. Fascinating reading from an original source. He also spearheaded the Boy Scouts of America.http://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/eassoul.htm

I do not see how this artifice helps Obama in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, North Carolina or Virginia. The media loves it (of course) and is promoting it in their normal meme as an act of presidential bravery. To me it is an indication of the frankenstein political system that we have created, one where every reasonable standard is negotiable downward with no end in sight of a bottom (slight pun intended). The pervasive ugliness and coarseness continues, but as our late great President Lincoln determined, no one gets out alive. You’re about as free as an ape in a zoo.

The day after North Carolina voted 60-40 to ban gay marriage, Barack Obama did what any sane politician would do and … endorsed gay marriage. He told ABC that he felt compelled to by the gay interns he knew, his wife, his children and Jesus. Why did he really do it? Sheer, naked opportunism. Like the contraception issue before it, this is an attempt to distract from how bad the economy is. What will Obama do next in his desperate bid for re-election? Make a claim on the Falklands?It’s unlikely that Obama is taking a principled stand for civil rights. In 1996, he said he was for gay marriage. In 2004, when he was running for the Senate, he said that Jesus told him it was wrong (Jesus, apparently, changes his mind almost as often as the Prez). In 2008, he repeated that gay marriage was a step too far. Then he started to “evolve” and, like the caterpillar, he turned into a beautiful pink butterfly. Now that he’s for it, his tortuous flip-flopping makes Mitt Romney look comparatively consistent. But more on that later.

{…}The Prez probably has his eye on big campaign dollars from Hollywood, which was causing him havoc on the gay rights issue only last week. North Carolina forced his hand, but in a way that some on his team might calculate is a vote winner. I infer the game plan to be this: 1) make everyone stop talking about the economy and start debating sex instead, 2) mobilise that liberal base, 3) split the Republicans by forcing Romney to reiterate his hard-line anti-marriage position, 4) turn the election into a coalition of the young, women and well educated vs the old, religious and dumb. The bottom line: send people into that voting booth thinking about anything other than their job.Already the plan has started to work because it’s taken our minds off the most startling takeaway from Tuesday’s elections: a convicted felon took 41 percent of the vote in a primary race against Obama. Several counties in West Virginia voted for a man serving time for extortion rather than pull the lever for a President who has waged war against the energy industry that feeds their state. West Virginia used to vote slavishly for the Democrats: they even went for Jimmy Carter in 1980 when the rest of the country was embracing Reagan. But ever since the Democrats moved so far to the Left, it’s been shifting towards the Republicans. Obama’s crash and burn economics has completed that move. The Republicans could run Charles Manson and beat Barack Obama in West Virginia.But will the gay-marriage bait-and-switch work in the fall? Maybe, maybe not. It could help Romney, who has been having trouble convincing the evangelical/Catholic base that he is one of them. Those people might have felt edgy voting for a “moderate Mormon,” but they’ll come out in big numbers to vote against Obama’s social liberalism. Also, Mitt’s reputation for flip-flopping is no longer a problem. Obama just flipped right over his head, did a 180 in the air, and landed on his backside on the other side of the political compass. Flopping is a dead issue in 2012.Meanwhile, all the evidence suggests that “the folks” (as Bill O’Reilly calls the great middle-class) don’t like gay marriage. Anti-marriage amendments have been passed in seven out of nine of the 2012 swing states – most of them by popular referenda. Propositions have been voted on in 32 states and on every occasion gay marriage has been banned, even in Maine. Maine.Ergo, the Republicans would do well to ignore Obama’s sudden endorsement – pretend like they never heard it. Social conservatives can quietly rely on ordinary voters to ban gay marriage in the states, while Mitt Romney needs to focus purely on the President’s appalling economic record. As for gay rights campaigners, I hope they won’t be fooled by this empty, cynical gesture. Why did Obama wait until after the North Carolina vote to back gay marriage? Cowardice, perhaps? Ladies and gentlemen, Obama is a politician. He’ll take your money and your votes and give you nothing in return. At least Mitt Romney might cut your taxes.

Agreed, I liked Obama for many reasons, but he is showing a certain desperation now that it's election year. This is the most cynical and opportunist ploy yet. He will lose all wavering voters because of his stance on this issue and even those Republican voters who don't like Romney will vote for him now.

Rufus II: We heard pretty much the same thing, from the same parties, during the Great Depression. In the Headlines FDR, and Eleanor were "Communists;"

WE? Rufusaurus Rex?

True. A lot of the political heat is generated by the endless right vs left blah blah blah of government.

But part of it is coming from a group that traces the decline of the country, and by extension, the modern western world! to the progressive era initiated by FDR, the Beginning of Big Government, which it was. (You would think that FDR was the avuncular face of Stalin or Tito or Mussolini - Pure Evil in wheelchair bound drag. I take some license.)

I'm not familiar with Thomas Mann but Norm Ornstein is a little iffy to me - scurries off into pedantic ether when challenged with the prosaic demands of the modern world, which I guess would make him an excellent politician.

Their critique that advocacy politics does not necessarily lead to good government is probably a good one; I'm just not sure if it is the salient problem, which seems to be good (better) government vs no government. (The EU blowup/out is annoying the crap out of me. Shut down Washington and throw away the key before Nicolas and Carla invade the Rose Garden.)

The country seems to be leaning towards the ice water of libertarianism and I'm not sure that is the lesser evil. But I am sure there is a plan.

I see some country crackpot in West Virginia is predicting "armed insurrection" is Obama wins in November.

I understand hatred as an emotion. But I also recognize in myself a couple of mitigating mechanisms that are borderline subconscious. At any rate, the internal temperature shuts down after a point. But with some people, that's not true.

McNutz voter here too. Not that I had anything against Obama directly. It was more his overtly contemptuous treatment of Hillary, the Rev Wright fire and brimstone, the juvenile religious iconography that peppered his outing campaign, and, of course, Michelle. (Thought it was funny/ironic the way religion entered from the Left. Yikes.)

As I stated, I voted for McCrazy even though my beliefs were more aligned with Obama's. Regrettably, I must put that decision down to rascism (mitigated, perhaps, by force of habit - I'd never voted for a Dem in a national election in my life.)

Blacks in North Carolina voted against gay marriage by a two to one margin. Civil rights for me, none for thee. But then they don't seem thrilled with the marital state themselves, 70% of black families missing a live in father.

In 2009, the Iowa Supreme Court made history with its unanimous decision to allow same-sex marriage.

One year later, Iowa voters made history again by ousting three of the justices who handed down that ruling.

The backlash was as extreme as it sounds: their removal from the high court was the first time an Iowa Supreme Court justice wasn’t retained in nearly a half-century.

And the issue echoed through the 2010 governor’s race as well. Republican Terry Branstad argued that the court was wrong to strike down the state law banning same-sex marriage and advocated a constitutional amendment to re-institute the ban. His Democratic opponent, Gov. Chad Culver, disagreed on the idea of putting the court decision to a vote.

Culver lost his reelection bid, though not solely because of his position on same-sex marriage. Still, it didn’t help him, and that’s the risk Obama takes there. Obama and Iowa go way back — he’s president today because he dealt Hillary Clinton a third-place finish there in the 2008 caucuses — but it’s a state where just 1 percentage point divided the presidential nominees in 2000 and 2004.

FWIW, and it's not much, but Quirk is right about the underlying issue - the gay community is demanding not just "equality" (civil unions) but "equivalence" (marriage), which is (a) a whole 'nother ballgame and (b) what makes me less inclined to support the "cause" of same-sex marriage.

A reasonable person would be satisfied with State-imposed guarantees of civil rights and personal liberties, but to demand that the State take a stand on equivalence is worse than just about anything I can think of coming out of the Religious Right.

Equality is the business of the State. Equivalence is not.

There, a few buzz words, handful of generalities and a smattering of bright shiny targets, all woven together with tautologies and non sequitors.

The Dow is weighted so that a $1 move by any stock, no matter how cheap or expensive, moves the average the same — about seven and a half points as the Dow is calculated today.

Because it's much easier for a $100 stock to move $1 than it is for a $20 stock, higher-priced stocks carry more importance. IBM [IBM 201.45 0.22 (+0.11%) ], at about $200, is the most expensive stock and carries nearly 12 percent of the Dow's weight.

Apple would carry a quarter or more, depending on which stock it replaced. That is why the Dow would be thousands of points higher if it had welcomed Apple in 2009: Each share of Apple has grown by hundreds of dollars since then.

The Justice Department is through negotiating with the self-proclaimed toughest sheriff in America. Authorities announced yesterday that they will sue Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio for alleged civil rights violations, the AP reports. The department had been trying to work out an agreement with Arpaio in which he'd train his officers on how to make constitutional traffic stops and convince Hispanics that they were protecting them, too, but Arpaio balked at a major condition: a court-appointed monitor to make sure he was following through.

Arpaio said the monitor would undermine his authority, and the Justice Department refused to strike a deal without one. "If they sue, we'll go to court, and then we'll find out the real story," Arpaio said yesterday. "They're telling me how to run my organization." The Justice Department has accused the Maricopa County sheriff of racial profiling of Latinos, punishing Hispanic inmates for speaking Spanish, and fostering a culture that disregards basic constitutional rights.

Ron Paul's campaign has been expertly gaming the GOP primary system, taking advantage of just how boring its behind-the-scenes machinations are to collect more delegates than his vote totals would indicate. Paul's fans have been flooding the otherwise sleepy meetings where state delegates are chosen and electing themselves, the Washington Post explains. So even though Romney won the Maine caucus, for example, Paul took 21 Maine delegates; Romney got one. The question is: Why? What does Paul want?

"By at least holding the threat of embarrassing [Romney] at the convention … they can hope to leverage something," says one professor specializing in convention minutiae. "What that is, I have no earthly idea." Paul has shown little interest in disrupting the convention, but might demand changes to the party platform, or a major speaking spot. And that spot might not be for him. Asked what Paul's push was about, a senior adviser said, "The future. The sun also rises. I'll put it that way. It means the congressman has a son who's a US senator. That's what it means."

Take Samir Khan, for instance. Before fleeing to Yemen to edit the jihadist magazine Inspire, he freelanced media support for al-Qaeda from his home in North Carolina via the internet. Khan was quick to bemoan American Muslims’ disinterest in his concept of jihad, playing it off as the product of distraction rather than disagreement.

“It is the culture of hating death and loving wealth,” Khan wrote of American Muslim culture in a post to his “Ignored Puzzle Pieces of Knowledge” blog, using a play on Osama Bin Laden’s classic catch phrase. “They don’t want to fling themselves into the spears of the enemies when they could be playing their PlayStation 3 or enjoying their favorite television show or sport whilst eating their favorite dinner meal.”

It was a sentiment he later echoed in the pages of Jihad Recollections, an English-language screed Khan published with fellow extremists. It became the template for Inspire. “Their Islam is limited to the more ‘acceptable’ parts of the Qur’an and Sunnah, whilst they shun Islam’s more controversial or antagonistic teachings,” Khan wrote of those promoting “moderate” Islam. “We find many of our fellow Muslims in America that are absolutely blinded by the inspiring play of American politics, the comfortable practice of ‘moderate’ Islam, and the denunciation of the Islamists.”

Have I got your argument correct? Your only quibble is "words have meaning" and "marriage" means a union between a man and a women yet Gays deserve all the equivalents of marriage but you just want to call it a civil union. Have I got your argument correct?

Once again you are late to the party, Ash. We have been arguing about this for two days. Must we start all over again to catch you up.

By your use of the word 'quibble', I expect we are about to be graced with some more of your pathetically PC musings. My question to you is, if it is merely a 'quibble', why does the gay lobby insist on using the term 'marriage'. They can push for civil unions, an arrangement most in the US approve of, but they don't. What was once the holy grail is now passe. Now it has to be gay 'marriage'. If you can't see the agenda at work, your blind or a naif.

Max pointed out the difference between equality and equivalency. I've pointed out the lesson of 1984 Newspeak. I get enough euphemisms and dysphemisms out of the government as it is. I don't need them sanctioning Newspeak and oxymorons.

Try looking up the meaning of the words 'equality' and 'equivalence'. You'll find they have different meanings much as 'marriage' and 'gay marriage' do (at least until an all intrusive government finds a way to force a new meaning on us in response to political interests).

Having read your arguments it appears as if you don't wish to deny gay folk any rights. It appears as if your conception of Civil Union is the same as marriage in all respects except in name and the sex of the participants. Is that the case? Is there a difference between a Civil Union and a Marriage other than the sex of the participants?

If not then it is just a quibble. If there is please explain the difference between the two?

Ash, the fact that you miss the point here is not surprising. The fact that you fail to see or just ignore the agenda at play is even less surprising.

To me, it is not a quibble. To the majority of the gay community, it is not a quibble. To the liberals who support the gay agenda, it is not a quibble. The those who oppose 'gay marriage', it is not a quibble. In other words, to most people involved, it is not a quibble.

The fact that you find the issue to be "just a quibble" is again not surprising.

If it is 'just a quibble', why do gays argue for it rather than just accept civil unions and have everyone happy? If it's just a quibble, why do you give a shit one way or another?

Do you think its fine if the government merely sanctions civil unions rather than gay 'marriage'? If so, why are you arguing this point since it is such a quibble? On the other hand, do you think the government should sanction the concept of gay 'marriage'? If so, why, especially given that the issue is such a quibble?

In an highly unusual, unscheduled conference call, CEO Jamie Dimon revealed that the bank's Chief Investment Office has suffered a trading loss of $2 billion in its synthetic credit portfolio, offset by a $1 billion securities gain, as a strategy to re-hedge its portfolio backfired.

...has suffered a trading loss of $2 billion in its synthetic credit portfolio, offset by a $1 billion securities gain, as a strategy to re-hedge its portfolio backfired.

That says it all.

Dimon was the one that called the heads of big banks (BoA, GS, etc.)together for a meeting with their bank regulator about a week ago to complain of 'unwarranted' government regulation designed to reduce the risk the banks could take on.

Banks have been arguing broadly that the rule would cut liquidity and raise prices in markets, while many critics of the large banks have said the trading needs to be reined in more aggressively.

The trading loss "plays right into the hands of a whole bunch of pundits out there," Mr. Dimon said. "We will have to deal with that—that's life."

The losses could potentially expose bank employees to so-called clawback policies that permit the recovery of compensation in the event of a financial re-statement. Banks like J.P. Morgan have adopted such policies, which also are required under the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul law.

Richard Mourdock’s big primary victory over incumbent senator Dick Lugar in Indiana suggests that the insurgent Tea Party conservatism of 2009-2010 is alive and well in the 2012 Republican party. (On the other hand, Keith Judd’s showing against President Obama in Tuesday’s West Virginia Democratic presidential primary—the federal inmate won a higher percentage of the vote against the president than Lugar managed against Mourdock!—suggests something wacky is going on among Democrats, at least in West Virginia.

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UPDATE: I regret the somewhat snarky tone of my parenthetical note about Mr. Keith Judd, the choice of 40 percent of West Virginia Democrats. According to Politico, he's pro-Mozart and pro-Nixon! Why wouldn't sensible Mountaineers vote for him over President Obama?

The widow of one of the London suicide bombers was financing a terrorist attack in Kenya, it has been claimed.

The allegation was made as Jermaine Jhon Grant, a Briton, appeared before a court in Mombasa, accused of plotting a bomb attack. Jacob Ondari, for the prosecution, said the Muslim convert had been helped by Samantha Lewthwaite, the 28-year-old widow of Germaine Lindsay.

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Grant, from Newham, was first detained in Kenya near the Somali border in 2008, but is accused of escaping custody with the help of a group of Islamist militants belonging to the Islamist insurgents al-Shabaab.

I understand the emotions that are fueling these prosecutions, and I understand the pain and loss suffered by those whose loved ones were murdered on 9/11, and I understand the horrific nature of the crimes for which these defendants have been charged. But in America, we still have the rule of law.

...

This trial may have dire unforeseen consequences. From the president who opposed all this when he was a senator but now effectuates it, to members of Congress who enacted the Military Commissions Act that authorizes incarceration after acquittal (a procedure even the Soviets did not utilize), to the victims' families who surely would not want this rough justice visited upon their children; all these people now crying for blood could one day see the ruination of due process in America, with this case as precedent.

What constitutes a fair trial is the due process of American justice, which is guaranteed and required by the Constitution itself. If we deviate from the moral values of that system for the people we hate, woe to us for making law retroactively and based on hatred.

Outlays for military active duty and retirement, Veterans’ benefits, Supplemental Security Income and MedicarePayments to Health Maintenance Organizations for April 1, 2012 were accelerated to March 30, 2012.

One wonders how much these expenses cost. Also, since April is a big month for income taxes. It sounds good, but given these factors, it's hard to figure out what to make of it. At least for me.

Cracks in the Washington Post story on Romney’s ‘pranks’ emergeinShare15Email This ArticlePrint This Article

A question emerges in reading the Washington Post piece on Mitt Romney today: How can Romney’s old pal Stu White tell the Washington Post that he has “long been bothered by the Lauber incident” — and then later admit to ABC News that he was “not present for the prank” and “was not aware of it until this year when he was contacted by the Washington Post”?

This is curious.

The Washington Post story reports: “I always enjoyed his pranks,” said Stu White, a popular friend of Romney’s who went on to a career as a public school teacher and has long been bothered by the Lauber incident.”

But ABC News, says: “White was not present for the prank, in which Romney is said to have forcefully cut a student’s long hair and was not aware of it until this year when he was contacted by the Washington Post.”

Many ERA supporters blamed their defeat on sinister undemocratic special interest forces, especially the insurance industry and conservative organizations, suggesting they funded an opposition that subverted the democratic process and the will of the pro-ERA majority.[23] They argued that while the public face of the anti-ERA movement was Phyllis Schlafly and her STOP ERA organization, there were other important groups in the opposition as well, such as the powerful National Council of Catholic Women and (until 1973) the AFL–CIO. Critchlow and Stachecki say the anti-ERA movement was based on strong support among Southern whites, Evangelical Christians, Mormons, Orthodox Jews, and Roman Catholics, including both men and women.

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The amendment has been reintroduced in every session of Congress since 1982.

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At the start of the 112th Congress on January 6, 2011, Senator Menendez, along with Representatives Maloney, Jerrold Nadler and Gwen Moore, held a press conference advocating for the Equal Rights Amendment's adoption.[38] On March 8, 2011, the 100th Anniversary of International Women's Day, Representative Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) introduced legislation (H.J.Res. 47) to remove the Congressionally imposed deadline for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment.[39] Bill co-sponsors include Representatives Robert Andrews (D-NJ), Jackie Speier (D-CA), Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), Chellie Pingree (D-ME) and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL).[40] And on March 22, 2012, the 40th anniversary of ERA's congressional approval, Senator Benjamin L. Cardin (D-MD) introduced (S.J. Res. 39)--which is worded with slight differences from Congresswoman Baldwin's (H.J. Res. 47). Senator Cardin was joined by ten other Senators who added their names to the Senate Joint Resolution.

ERA is a pretty solid "equal [under the law] but different" piece of legislation. Seems like we've gone beyond that.

Procter & Gamble Co. is relocating its global skin, cosmetics and personal-care unit from its Cincinnati headquarters to Singapore, following a decision to base the business in the fast-growing Asia beauty market.

Forty-five years later, in the middle of the night of May 7-8, 2012, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shocked his country by bringing the main opposition party, Kadima, into a national unity government. Shocking because just hours earlier, the Knesset was expediting a bill to call early elections in September.

Why did the high-flying Netanyahu call off elections he was sure to win?

Because for Israelis today, it is May '67. The dread is not quite as acute: The mood is not despair, just foreboding. Time is running out, but not quite as fast. War is not four days away, but it looms.

I was impressed with Obama. He is a quick learner. He said he learned from his daughters, age, what, 10 and 13, that gay marriage, one of the most important issues there is culturally, was the way to go. I realized kids grow up fast in some respects these days, and ought to be listened to on some things, but maarriage? And, gay marriage?

Wow, some kids.

Whole episode reminds of when Jimmy Carter, in debate, said he had talked some geo/political problem over with his daughter, Amy(?), and agreed with her. Can't recall the issue, something insignificant like a ballistic missile treaty or some such. Maybe it was Iran.

Romney should be a great President. He has five young sons to turn to when things get rough. And some of them are mostly grown.

I remember Carter, the moment he mentioned asking his daughter, immediately seeming to think "What the hell have I said." No such reaction from O'loser.

Quibble over a word? I thought we made it clear that the ancient concept of marriage was by definition between a man and a woman and fundamental to society. It is not a quibble that there is even a serious attempt to make a counter-argument. It is so fundamentally wrong and off the charts that there is not even a word for it. The progressive left decided no word, no problem, hijack the word “marriage” and then all those with more PC in them than shit and blood line up to go along with the real word “travesty”.

..and you think they will stop there? We are supposed to fall in terror the very mention of some words and ignore the hijacking of and redefining of others. I have a suggestion for the missing word, “analism”. We can call the couples “ analists” and the advocates ass-holes.

Magnificent Ronald and the Founding Fathers of al Qaeda

“These gentlemen are the moral equivalents of America’s founding fathers.” — Ronald Reagan while introducing the Mujahideen leaders to media on the White house lawns (1985). During Reagan’s 8 years in power, the CIA secretly sent billions of dollars of military aid to the mujahedeen in Afghanistan in a US-supported jihad against the Soviet Union. We repeated the insanity with ISIS against Syria.